Stalkerbook, or something..

Remember that time when it was seen as ordinary to blurt out any thought that popped into your easily excited brain? I do too. It was when you were 9. So why is it happening globally everyday? Why do people believe that we’d care about their ingrown toenail, or what flavour ice cream they have after dinner? You could honestly find more sense in Gok Wan’s wardrobe.

Yes, this is the worldwide frenzy that is Facebook. Of course you’ll have heard of it already, unless the last 10 years of your life were spent locked in David Cameron’s pleb cellar doing nothing but polishing his forehead. But for those of you who don’t have a clue what it’s all about - here’s a little run through of the absurdity of it all.

 Every user has their own ‘wall’ where they can write a status to tell everyone ‘what’s on their mind’. This is like a little diary only everyone see’s it.. This idea of saying ‘what’s on your mind’ really shouldn’t be taken literally, because if everyone spoke their complete mind we’d end up with a giant, orgy filled world war 3 to contend with. It’s usually the mind-less people that share the most anyway, producing dim-witted updates every hour of the day, until the typing wears away their fingers and they have to take a short break – only to afterwards comment on the break. It’s never ending cycle of useless twallop.
All of these statuses end up on a person’s feed, where you view all the statuses and comments from your friends. Hardly anything constructive can be seen here, just dozens of pointless polls and funny-but-not-actually-funny-‘cos-they’re-kind-of-racist group pages. The intellectual level of the poll questions border on grasshopper, whilst the groups are just another way of posting a status… Yay! I don’t know what sort of feed this is, but I’d prefer a bacon sandwich.      

And you can’t just fill someone’s feed with garbage, oh no - you can poke them as well. This is almost as pointless as battery powered batteries. You press a button and it tells the other person that they’ve been poked.

…

Moving on.

There is Facebook chat option, for the people who are far too cool to spend an extra minute logging into msn or skype, to talk privately. This would be a lifesaver if it was used more often. Maybe then we would not have to hear comments such as “OOOOOHHHH guess who rang” “Awww I’m soo upset” and the almost instantaneous replies of “what’s wronggg babee xx” “bbm me myy beautt”. Comments that are filled with more hearts than a pack of cards and enough X’s to win every noughts and crosses game ever played. If everyone’s feed is like that, it’s a miracle that we haven’t all died of facebook food poisoning.

Another feature on this wonderful site is the ability to post and share your photos. Whoever embedded this feature had obviously drunk too much vodka the night before and was letting his imagination get the better of him; seeing photo albums of landscape art and family photos. Instead we got albums full of nausea, pain and regret. You also get the inevitable photos of girls posing in every single way humanly possible without actually destroying the camera in a heap of push-up bra’s and makeup. They might even make a duck lips pose and push out their chest, mimicking   “Oh look at me, I’m so pretty I can make a silly face and still look beautiful, don’t you just love me”.

No, you look like a duck. Get over yourself.  

However my favourite photos has to be the shameless self-photos. If you are going to take the time to be a cam-whore then at least do the job properly. When the camerawork is worse than Gordon Brown’s personal photography, It’s not going to end well. It’s not just awkward for you, but for us too, having to look you in the eye and say you look great, while in fact the photo of you looks like it was a drawing by a 5 year old. Of a seal.

The best ‘self photo’ of the lot is the “future pedophile” look, usually taken by an adolescent male. Not only can’t the boy get a friend to take a picture of him, but also he can’t even be bothered to take a proper photo himself. The result?  A rather eerie web cam picture of him in a darkened room only lit by his computer screen. Yum. Of course, the boy cannot take his eyes away from the WoW game and/or porn that he is quite obviously watching long enough to even look at the web cam. With some people you can immediately tell.. - so just keep the kids away from him.

It’s as though facebook is a gateway for the socially inactive to worm their way into peoples live. View their photos. Stalk them. Poke them. Like them.

All of these features that make up ‘the facebook’ are just reducing further the dwindling faith I have in the competence of human kind. Why should we need to communicate our idea’s hidden behind a screen, upload photo’s to gain self confidence, like comments to try and fit it. It’s a farce.

So, if you’re socially inept with the need to express yourself to the world - use facebook. You can virtually “poke” whomever you want, and I sure if you comment on someone’s “wall” enough, they might eventually talk to you in real life. Be friends with anyone in the world, if they’ll accept you. They’ll definitely want to hear your opinion on channel 4’s ‘A place by the sea’ as much as the next person.
Well, I’m not sure about that, but Akhmed from Pakistan, with 0 mutual friends, will enjoy your opinion anyway.
 

Stoney